I'm sat as I type in the Aria hotel in Las Vegas listening to a fascinating session run by Koree Khongphand-Buckman, Timothy Aragon and Amy O'Neill from Hogan Lovells.  The title is "Moving the business development needle with fusion".

They have developed a programme whereby the BD and Marketing team essentially provide consultancy to the lawyers in the firm.  I work with lots of professional services marketing and BD people who have a daily struggle to get their very clever lawyers doing business development effectively.  It's hard work but Hogan Lovell have built a very structured programme to help, assist and guide the lawyers through this business development journey.  What caught my attention the most was how they really stress the value to the lawyer in being effective at this.

Showing the value to a lawyer is the most important thing.  If you show the value and they understand what's in it for them then they will react, listen and action.  Once you bring success then the lawyers talk and they tell their colleagues who want a piece of the action and all of a sudden the BD and Marketing team are no longer a "cost" but instead a valuable resource that help drive business growth.

I wonder how many law firm  BD and Marketing teams have the bravery to run such a structured programme;  to stand up and say "we are here to drive forward your business".  If you want to do that, we are here to help.